Vince's Dragon

Vince’s Dragon

By Ben Bova

The warehouse fire was the most spectacular anyone had seen in a long time, and the police were totally stymied about its cause. They questioned Vince at length, especially since he had forgotten to get rid of the gasoline and paint thinner in the back of the stolen station wagon. But they couldn’t pin a thing on him, not even car theft, one Louie had Big Balls Falcone explain the situation to the unhappy wagon’s owner.

Vincee’s position in the Family started to rise. Spectacularly.

Arson became his specialty. Louie gave him tougher and tougher assignments and Vince would wander off a night later and the job would be done. Perfectly.

He met Sizzle regularly, sometimes in abandoned building, sometimes in empty lots. The dragon remained invisible then, of course, and the occasional passerby got the impression that a young, sharply-dressed man was standing in the middle of weed-choked, bottle-strewn empty lot, talking to thin air.

More than once they could have heard him asking, « You really ain’t interested in my soul? »

But only Vince could hear Sizzle’s amused reply, « No, Vince, I have no use for souls, yours or anyone else’s. »

As the months went by, Vince’s rapid rise to Family stardom naturally attracted some antagonism from other young men attempting to get ahead in the organization. Antagonism sometimes led to animosity, threats, even attempts at violence.

Dragon without a head. Photo by Elena

But strangely, wondrously, anyone who got angry at Vince disappeared. Without a trace, except once when a single charred shoe of Fats Lobardi’s was found in the middle of Tasker street, between Twelfth and Thirteenth.

Louie and the other elders of the Family nodded knowingly, Vince was not only ambitious and talented. He was smart. No bodies could be laid at his doorstep.

From arson, Vince branched into load-sharking, which was still the heart of the Family’s operation. But he didn’t need Big Balls Falcone to terrify his customers into paying on time. Customers who didn’t pay found their cars turned into smoking wrecks. Right before their eyes, an automible parked at the curb would burst into flame.

« Gee, too bad, » Vince would say. « Next time it might be your house, » he’d hint darkly, seeming to wink at somebody who wasn’t there. At least, somebody no one else could see. Somebody very tall, from the angle of his head when he winked.

The day came when Big Balls Falcone himself, understandably put out by the decline in his business, let it be known that he was coming after Vince. Big Balls disappeared in a cloud of smoke, literally